Sam Harrell put stamp on Tech

Second down now… Deep strike… Got the big man!... CRABTREE!... Pulls free… And touchdown Red Raiders with a second to go!

Who created this moment in time?

Mike Leach called an aggressive play with eight seconds to go down 33-32 with eight seconds to go in the biggest game in Texas Tech history. Graham Harrell fielded the snap and threw the ball about a half-second away from a sack to the six-yard line mark just about on the east sideline. Michael Crabtree used his big, strong hands, arms and legs to reel in the catch, avoid the sideline and break free to the endzone.

But so much more went into making that play when you think about it. That was just a fleeting moment in time fueled by moments before it and giving power to the moments after it.

Today, you're going to learn about one of the best high school coaches in the world's contribution to the play.

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The Harrells want to give you some CiCi's Pizza for lunch.

And they want to teach you how to be a good football player as well after you're done with the pizza.

But in the moment, they've realized they ordered too much pizza for the Harrell Passing School at People's Bank Stadium in the Lubbock suburb of Wolfforth and are looking for random people to take them before they go completely cold.

The Harrells are a special bunch. They're all above-average people first and foremost as well players who have congregated in Lubbock for the weekend to teach predominantly middle schoolers and young high school players some of the fundamentals of offense.

Footwork. Throwing. Catching. Blocking. While feeding you too.

You know about the most famous Harrell, former Texas Tech quarterback and now-Green Bay Packer quarterback Graham Harrell.

But the bigger story here amongst this scene of hustle and bustle Harrells figuring out what to with the left over pizzas was a man not garnering any attention on this day. It's legendary Texas high school football coach Sam Harrell who just looks like a dad in a baseball cap rather than someone who needs to acknowledged for some of the newer innovations in high school football.

Then there's Sam's wife and Graham's mother Kathy Harrell. And Graham Harrell's big brother Zac Harrell who was a high school football star. Then their little brother Clark Harrell who had a good career at Abilene Christian University.

And then there's the City of Ennis, Texas, where the Harrells gave the town of 18,500 a beacon of pride.

They helped change they way Texas high school football is played.

They played a surprisingly big role in Tech's run toward a National Championship in 2008.

First, what can we say about Ennis?

Ennis is a good place to stop for food or gas or lodging if you're on some sort of long haul. The people are nice. They embrace a Czech heritage with famous kolaches and the annual National Polka Festival.

It's a predominantly blue-collared town that is or is not a suburb of Dallas, depending on who you ask, about 45 minutes south of downtown Dallas on I-45 on your way to Houston.

Ennis once had a good high school football team that got really bad and then quickly became a Texas powerhouse recognized on the national level before falling back down to Earth.

Why the flux?

It has everything to do with the Harrells.

"I was coaching out in Big Lake right here in West Texas at Reagan County," Sam Harrell said during the Harrell Passing School at People's Bank Stadium in the Lubbock suburb of Wolfforth. "We had made a pretty good run and had done some pretty good things. The Ennis job open up and we had a friend who was actually leaving there who called me and said 'Apply for this job.'

"I really didn't know anything about Ennis or anything. I did know that back when I played back in the 70's they had won a State Championship. I didn't know anything else. I applied and went out there and they offered me the job. And actually when I took it, I took it without ever seeing the athletes. And after seeing the athletes, I might not have taken it. We were kind of down when we first got there."

Sam Harrell had played Brownwood football under legendary Texas high school head coach Gordon Wood. And for a coach that won 396 career games, Wood's biggest contribution to the game might have been the coaches he produced under him that produced great coaching trees of their own.

Sam Harrell was once the highest paid Texas high school football coach, but we're getting way ahead of ourselves.

Sam Harrell's father was a coach. And now his oldest son Zac Harrell is a football coach. It is likely Graham Harrell will follow suit after his NFL career comes to an end.

"You just kind of had it in your blood, you know?" Sam Harrell said. "That's what I was going to be. Be a coach. And I'll be honest with you, I didn't know if coaching was going to be fun or not. I had the best time."

The year was 1994. Sam Harrell's sons, Zac, Graham and Clark, were just beginning their football careers. Graham Harrell was nine years old.

Sam Harrell installed the shotgun spread offense at Ennis -- an offense that would be all the rage at the turn of the century when Ennis began its best years ever. He had to talk Ennis athletes into playing football as the student body's preferred sport at the time was basketball.

"Out in the gym, we had kids slamming the ball this way and slamming the ball this way," Sam Harrell said. "I asked 'How many of those play football?' None. Over the years we started to get those athletes. Ran into some good quarterbacks and all of a sudden you have a good quarterback and good skill position players and good things can happen."

But it wasn't as easy as turning dunkers into passers, catchers and hard hitters.

"You hate to say this, but it takes winning," Sam Harrell said. "You've got to start winning for kids get excited and parents to get excited. Since the 1970's when they had won the state and gone on to another playoff, from the 70's all the way to the mid-90's they had been to the playoffs one time. One time in like 20 years. They had one playoff game in 22 years. They had no tradition in winning in football.

"But we started doing it. Now, parents were getting excited and fans were getting excited and there were more people sitting in the stands so more kids wanted to come out and play."

By the mid-2000's Ennis rivaled Southlake Carroll as the best high school program in Texas. But the two schools never played. Carroll was 5A and Ennis was 4A.

Ennis won a 4A State Championship in 2000, 2001 and 2004 and were the favorites to win in 2002 and 2003 as well with Graham Harrell starting at quarterback from 2001 through 2003.

The first State Championship was powered by all-everything receiver Zac Harrell. Graham Harrell was the backup quarterback. Clark Harrell was in middle school.

"Zac was just a great receiver for us," Sam Harrell said. "He's a possession type receiver. He wasn't the fastest guy on the team, he wasn't this or that. But he was a good receiver and I think that's what makes him such a good coach now. Because it wasn't easy for him. And what makes kids good coaches is kids who it doesn't come so easy to. The kids that had to really learn to do things can coach that up."

Then Graham Harrell came in.

"Graham was, obviously from the career he has now, the one that probably had more of it," Sam Harrell said. "You could see him and a seventh and eighth grader and could tell he was pretty good. Kathy and I, we just never were the type that said our kid was going to go to college. We didn't know that. He just looked pretty good.

"But seventh and eighth grade, he just did things so much easier than everyone else. We didn't have ninth or 10th graders that could do that. It just came easy for him. And we coached him a lot too in the backyard and could teach him around the clock. It was a special time when he got to college and he chose Tech. Those were some awfully fun years. He came at the right time."

Clark Harrell was supposed to help the 2004 Ennis team to its state championship but went down early in the season with an injury. He returned in 2005 and led the Ennis Lions to the third-round of the playoffs.

Meanwhile, Graham Harrell had signed with Tech.

But for nearly a decade, there was a Harrell boy in Sam Harrell's locker room.

"I coached for a long time without them and when they got there that period from Zac to Clark really was fun," Sam Harrell said. "When Clark graduated, I'll be honest, it was different. I tell Kathy I don't know why because I used to coach without them. You feel like you're never going to coach your kids again. So this camp, even though I'm not coaching my kids, to have everyone out here and them coaching is really a lot of fun."

Sam, Graham and Texas Tech

Ennis was a nationally ranked team in 2003 and their season came to a shocking end when sophomore Highland Park quarterback and now-Detroit Lion Matthew Stafford's Highland Park team upset them 38-28 in the third round of the playoffs.

During that season, Graham Harrell was being heavily recruited which could have provided a distraction for the star quarterback and the head coach. Surprisingly, Graham Harrell's commitment to Tech was rather subdued.

Graham Harrell made his announcement on an answering machine when he called his house and no one picked up the phone.

"We really left it up to him," Sam Harrell said. "He called and we just happened to not be at the house. It just hit him this way. He said 'Dad, I think I want to go to Tech.' I told him we had been waiting on something. He just didn't know before that and something hit him one day. It worked out well.

"It was crazy, all the people coming by practice. You're their best friend at the time. I had been around that having kids on my team and you know that's just a game. It's not like they're lying, but they're telling a lot of kids the same things."

Part of Graham Harrell's decision was the Red Raiders ran a spread offense very similar to what Ennis ran.

It was just a good fit.

Sam Harrell said Graham Harrell didn't improve while at Tech though and that's why he struggled out of the gates landing with an NFL team.

"We just always tried to focus on fundamental stuff," Sam Harrell said. "Footwork. His high release. You hear him talk about that and his high release. We didn't do near enough with him.

"To be honest with you, I thought he would go to college and learn more. I don't want this to sound negative about Tech, but he went to college and didn't get any better. I can tell you that. I watched him, as far as his mechanics. They just never worked on it. It just wasn't a big deal to them and that's how they ran their system. Then he gets to Green Bay and suddenly realizes -- He came out of high school and could throw a bunch of balls and throw most of them for completions so he kind of thought he knew what to do. When he got to Green Bay he realized he missed some of that in college and now had to make up from high school to pro. Green Bay has been so good for him and he's gotten so much better. He's throwing with more velocity. Quicker release."

And that helped inspire the Harrell Passing Academy, according to Sam Harrell.

"He's just wanting to pass it on," Sam Harrell said. "He doesn't want to keep it a secret. He wants to help these young kids learn how to do the best they can."

Sam Harrell beats back M.S.

Sam Harrell was so happy to be back in Lubbock. He's so happy to be coaching kids again.

In 2005 he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and the disease slowly but surely ate away at the man that was.

From walking to riding around in a golf cart to retirement, Sam Harrell left the job he loved so much with a final record of 153-51.

He's a big believer in stem cell therapy.

You can tell Sam Harrell still has some effects of the disease, but he's a modern day Lazarus.

Sam Harrell has made three trips to Panama to receive stem cell treatment and the third trip was incredibly successful after incremental improvements after his first two visits.

His health has progressed enough for him to be the quarterbacks coach a Brownwood High School under head coach Bob Shipley -- Jordan Shipley's father.

"That third trip to Panama. I don't know why, why it was that one," Sam Harrell said. "The first and second I saw little gains and after the second one I changed 180 degrees nearly. I could just get around better and I looked better and felt better. I just hadn't looked well. I got to thinking that I might be able to coach again.

"I really didn't want to be a head coach again. I just wanted to go and coach quarterbacks again. Coach Shipley at Brownwood is a friend of mine and we ran into each other and he said I was looking great and I should come back and coach. I was retired. I had started my (pension) already. So he hired me part-time and it all just kind of fell in place. The Lord has just blessed us in so many days. Brownwood just went with it and all of a sudden I caught myself coaching quarterbacks in Brownwood. I'm so blessed and grateful I can do this again. I truly thought I could never coach football again."

At the low point with multiple sclerosis, Sam Harrell's daily routine was making it from his bed to his chair. It's not like that anymore.

"Now I can get up and almost walk around as good as y'all," he said while giving a friendly pat. "I'm getting around a lot better. It's amazing I can actually call myself a coach again. It's fun and kinds of gives you a new zeal. A new zeal in your life."